Give It Up (It's Love)
by Aunt Ginny Potter
Summary: Felicity suffered from selective obliviousness. Oliver had a short and sharply driven attention span. This wasn't going to end well.
1. Straight as an Arrow

**A\N: This will be a collection of short drabbles. I'll pretty much post whenever I decide to write seven hundred words on a whim again. Feel free to prompt me. :)**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Arrow.**

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><p>Oliver didn't always shoot straight.<p>

He'd have loved to blame her, but to do so he'd have had to admit the something they shared had somehow turned into The Something They Shared. And that it might have enough pull on his life to affect his archery.

He couldn't do that. He'd spent years constructing his Fortress of Brooditude. He wasn't about to tear it all apart because he couldn't keep it in his pants.

Because he could. He so could. Just watch him… coulding.

(He'd never claimed to have a way with words, still didn't, but he fancied himself a word-maker anyway. Because he'd invented the word 'word-maker', just like he'd invented 'Broditude' and 'coulding', and he was claiming the position for himself _first_, damn it.)

The arrow zoomed a good three inches to the left of the crack on the wall he was aiming for and ended up embedding itself right above his jacket – it might have skinned a couple of loose threads.

Diggle whistled because he could still impress him sometimes (especially, it seemed, when he was so impressive that other people couldn't tell when he missed), but Felicity seemed too preoccupied to spare him or the arrow more than a fleeting glare.

Frankly, so was he.

That stupid red pen had resurfaced. He'd never forget that pen, and not because the lie he'd been rolling off his tongue when he'd first laid eyes on it (on her) was particularly memorable, but because it was a really, _really _shiny pen. Almost _polished_, it really was.

Shiny stuff was bright. (He still had that way with words he was thinking about.) Bright stuff caught his attention. Got in his eyes. Of _course _he couldn't focus. It was obvious.

If Felicity would just put it away, he'd be able to ignore that her lipstick matched the color of the thing.

Then again, if Felicity would just put it away, he might have half a mind to tell her to bring it back out and he would show her in detail in how many ways she (he) could-

Roy and Digg were staring at him, because he was staring at her and she was staring at her computer, which seemed to be giving her a particularly hard time.

If the pen only came out when she was stuck, he was going to have to put to work what little knowledge about computers he pretended he didn't have, to facilitate that- he meant facilitate her task. Her _task_, not the bringing out of the pen. Because he didn't want it out. Of course not. He didn't have any sort of mixed feelings about it. It was just too shiny, got in his eyes. That was all.

He aimed again, but knew way better than to try to hit anything smaller than the wall in front of him.

Felicity made a little frustrated noise that sounded too much like a groan for anyone's comfort, bit the cap of the pen particularly hard, and, well, the arrow hit _something_. Oliver just wasn't very sure what. Or in what direction. Or if he'd accidentally aimed for the ceiling or something. For all he knew, he might have hit his own foot.

It was early. He had no discernable reason to escape. Digg called for a sparring session. Roy flat-out refused to be used as a practice dummy again. Felicity finally pulled the pen out of her mouth to write with it and it came out glistening and full of tiny indention marks.

Oliver knew he'd tripped on thin air on his way to the training area, but Roy wasn't about to get him to confirm it.

For the first time since never, Diggle beat him in the first three seconds of fighting. Oliver was man enough to admit he'd stayed down, eyes closed, for longer than strictly necessary to regain his bearings and to promise himself he was _not _glancing toward Felicity again.

When he finally got up, the first thing his eyes did was swerve to her side of the room, and she had put the pen back between her lips. Worse, her hair was twisted, because _of course _she'd decided now was a great time to start toying with her hair too.

It was going to be a long night.


	2. Green Arrow

He started to learn that he oughtn't try target practice whenever Felicity was around, those days. Not just because of the pen, because, well, that had become a necessary evil and Oliver had taught himself how long he could stare before it became inappropriate. (Apparently it had been disappeared and now she'd somehow found it again – curse – and she just wasn't letting it go.) It wasn't necessarily the best set-up ever, but he could make it work, so long at the balance wasn't tipped.

Then Felicity bought a new dress, and the balance of the scales didn't so much tip as it went _bang _when one of the plates hit the ground and the other flew up into the air.

She seemed to really love that dress. And hell, Oliver was perfectly used to see her wear the most daring things (which he would never under any circumstances call daring to her face, both because he didn't want to see how she couldn't exactly murder him but could perfectly promise to with a scary look and a scary voice, and also because he didn't actually want her to stop wearing them). It wasn't as though this one was particularly revealing.

It was green, however. And _short _(dear _Lord_, but was it short). It was worse than the cute red one she also favored, and whose designer felt it necessary to cut a whole right in the middle of the chest because _clearly_ it hadn't been inappropriate enough without it.

So, whenever she chose to get the green dress out of the wardrobe, which she seemed to need to do at least two or three times a month, Oliver was completely and utterly useless (screwed) for the rest of the day, because she was so damn distracting and he really needed to get the idea of getting her into some green leather out of his head.

He had a plan devised. Whenever she walked in and he saw the barest hint of green, it was time to drop the bow instantly, it was time to finish whatever spar he might be in also instantly, it was time to put a shirt on and it was time to make up an excuse as to why he really suddenly just couldn't avoid not being there. Previous engagement. He got accustomed to how those two words rolled off his tongue quickly and easily.

Of course, the plan had shortcomings. For example, when she came in at top speed because one of her computers needed immediate attention and he was hanging from the salmon ladder, facing her directly, he couldn't very well rub his eyes free of all the green.

So he was limited to falling off and to preserve his dignity in front of Diggle and Roy by pretending he was dropping down simply because he was done with the workout. The bar came with him, because he'd been mid-jump, and he just barely prevented it from noisily hitting the floor.

Then he avoided her eyes and went straight to get his hood, already mind-absently producing an excuse and lying through his teeth about patrolling. He took notice of the fact that her typing had ceased, but Roy and Digg were clearly being more energetic about their training, a valiant effort to pretend nothing was happening.

He was making his way to the door (_so _close) when she finally spoke.

"Are you dating someone and keeping her from me?" Felicity asked randomly.

He heard clattering and when he turned back, all he saw were two fast blurs leaving the building and Roy's bow on the floor. The dummy Diggle had been practicing on was still vibrating slightly.

Oliver closed his eyes briefly before resigning himself that he had to turn toward her.

"What?"

She hesitated. "Well – it's just – things have been- weird. I mean _-er_, weird-_er_, because it's always been-" She cringed and cut herself short. "Look, you keep trying to leave whenever _I _arrive, and just- tell me if there's something going on, please?"

"It's not about you." He said, which was a mistake, because she always knew when he was lying.

"You're lying to me!" She exclaimed, and _damn it_, but he really didn't want her getting up and approaching him. Particularly because that dress _had _to be the same shade of the Arrow outfit he was wearing.

She got up and approached him, and she stood too close because that was the norm for them. He wondered when they had developed this particular norm and if he had considered that she might one day buy a green dress at the time.

"Seriously, Oliver, what's going on? I said that if you were dating, you can tell me, because you don't owe me anything and I don't owe _you _anything either." Her eyes clouded, half hurt and half accusatory, even as she said this. "Not that it's any of my business, which is actually the point, but I'm just saying-"

"Felicity!" He tried to take a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose to see if he could focus on the pain instead. "You- Can we- Could you- I'm-" He glanced at the ceiling and prayed for guidance. "Can we have this conversation when I'm in my normal clothes and you're not wearing-" He focused his whole mind on not gulping and gestured in her general direction, not sure what part of her he should be pointing at. "When you're not wearing- _that_?"

Her hands instantly flew to the fabric, smoothing it out as though the problem was the dress and not her wearing it.

"What's wrong with my dress?" She asked indignantly.

He groaned. "There's nothing wrong with your dress, Felicity." In fact, he was certain that the problem was just how much right there was with seeing her clad in green.

This possessiveness was not only crippling, it was ridiculous. No matter how much it broke his heart to admit it even to himself, she wasn't his and he had been the one to make that choice. He had tried. He really, really had, so very hard. But he had also never made such a pointless effort.

He had ended up loving her, despite his best efforts. And it was making him rise up to the clouds and plunge down straight to hell, because he remembered every single other woman he had loved too well.

He brought his mind back to reality, because now she was glaring at him, and she was _still _wearing that dress. He'd half hoped she'd have changed while he was hallucinating about what would never be. Then again, she wouldn't have changed in front of him, would she? (He tried very hard not to add _'Too bad' _to the end of that sentence too.)

"Then _what is it_?"

_The problem is that every time you wear that dress, I can't help but wonder if it's an invitation for me to take it off you._

"I don't like that dress." Oliver revealed, in what was probably the biggest lie he had ever told in his life, and he had this weird tendency to find himself running around at night, shooting arrows into people in tights. Oh, he liked the dress just fine. What he didn't like was not being able to show her just how much.

"Oh." Felicity said slowly after a while.

"Yeah."

"I thought you just said there was nothing wrong with the dress."

"I was trying to- uh, spare your feelings."

"About my dress. You were trying to spare my feelings because you thought I would be- uh, what, heartbroken if you told me you didn't like my dress?"

"Yes?"

She didn't deign that with an answer and went back to her workstation. Oliver left.

She knew he was lying. She had to.

But the truth was he stopped seeing that dress around. She never wore it to the foundry anymore, and since those were the only times that he was allowed to see her (before their date, he hadn't felt so awkward about being around her), he started relaxing instead of tensing when he heard her heels clinking along.

Of course, that didn't mean she didn't wear it at all. Ray Palmer (of all people, all the men in the world, it had to be _Ray Palmer_?) saw a lot more of that dress than Oliver did, and a lot more than Oliver was comfortable with. Then again, it was quite satisfying in a more primal kind of way, because Felicity knew exactly what the color of that dress meant to Oliver (to her), if not to Palmer. Like, _yeah, she's there with you, but that's _my _color. _My _girl. I wouldn't get too cozy with her._

Oliver knew this because letting go of her and of what they had didn't mean letting go of stalking her while she went off to see other men, particularly those who Oliver wasn't particularly fond of. Well, at least to him. He had an inkling she might disagree.

It didn't matter. Eventually, Ray went. And Oliver stayed. Felicity knew that. That was all he needed.

Plus, when Ray went and Oliver stayed and took his head out of his ass and stopped making that pointless effort to keep away, Felicity – and all her dresses – were all his to enjoy.

And as it turned out, she knew perfectly well he had lied, because after that she started wearing that dress not two or three times a month, but two or three times a week.

And it was hard work, but he managed to keep making those previous engagement excuses to explain to Digg and Roy why he now disappeared not alone but with Felicity in a green dress.


	3. Mama and Papa Arrow

**A\N: Direct Harry Potter quote in this one! Besides the non-quotation reference, I mean. **_**And **_**besides the Supernatural reference. **_**And **_**the Doctor Who reference. Wow, I should stop, shouldn't I?**

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><p>"This isn't funny, Oliver!"<p>

"Do I look amused to you?"

(If he didn't, he would start doubting how well she actually knew him, because it was getting really hard to keep a straight face.)

"Ask me that again _after _you bother to hide that stupid smirk."

"_Felicity_." He groaned, dragging her name to make his point. "I'll _buy _you a new one. Just let it go."

"You're not a billionaire anymore, are you forgetting?"

"I was, up until a second ago, thanks."

"_Urgh!_" She slammed both hands on the table. "This is so completely your fault!"

Oliver tried to see the logic in that, he really did. "_How_?!"

"It was probably one of your… Acolytes."

"My _what_?"

"Yeah. Diggle, Roy, Thea, Laurel, Lyla, _someone _came down here and took it. I know it wasn't you because after last month you know better."

Oliver winced at the reminder. "I think they'd resent being called my _acolytes_. Actually, I'm pretty sure they'd resent being called my anything." Felicity glared at him from over his glasses, and he tried not to pay too much attention to the way she was kneeling under the desk. "And, anyway, they wouldn't do that to you. To me, maybe, and to each other too for sure, but not to you." He hurried to backtrack.

There was a beat of silence.

"It was probably Roy."

"Oh, it was _so totally_ Roy."

Oliver figured Roy had flawless (or unfortunate) timing, because he chose that precise moment to come in, and looking thoroughly non-concerned to boot. He pulled down his hoodie and raised his eyebrows at the part of Felicity he could see from his vantage point. Oliver could perfectly understand the fascination with the sight, but he could also not appreciate the staring.

He growled, and Roy remembered there were sharp pointy things, like, everywhere. Oliver was way too close to his arrows and it suddenly randomly occurred to Roy that he'd never seen him miss.

Felicity heard someone clearing his throat behind her, and because she liked to think she knew her boys (and her girls now too, she supposed), she could instantly tell Roy had arrived and didn't know he was about to be the recipient to a Voluntary Smoak Rant. (There was a difference between those and the Freudian Felicity Babbling.) She hurried to crawl out of her hole (the last time the thing had disappeared, when Slade had woken up one morning and figured '_hey, I know! I'll trash her stuff today!'_, it had been under her desk), giving up a lost cause when she saw one, and let go of the flashlight.

"What was me, Barbie?

"Don't _Barbie _me." Felicity screeched. Then she blanched. "I don't know what's wrong with that sentence, but there's something _really wrong_ with that sentence." Oliver felt he could afford the arrogance of claiming he knew her pretty well, and so he knew that to be a sadly honest statement on her life. "I'll probably figure it out while I'm in the bath tonight or something. Ah, _there _it is. I'd gone too long without being inappropriate."

"Yeah, I was starting to worry." Roy ventured, and Oliver slapped the back of his head.

"Ollie!" Thea complained, suddenly behind them. She was holding two helmets and wearing her black leather, so Oliver foresaw delivering a scolding about Roy only having _one-person_ rides in his near future (honestly, this had been so much easier when Felicity organized his calendar for him). "I thought we'd had this conversation already! No breaking my toys!"

Oliver rolled his eyes and Roy was clearly thinking of capitalizing on the pity, but Thea wasn't done. "And you!" She poked his chest. "I let you in on your own for a second and you manage to piss off both my brother _and _Felicity?"

Laurel came down the stairs, and managed to hear the last part of Thea's life-drama. "I thought Felicity was mad at Oliver. At least, that's where the situation stood when I went to the bathroom."

"Who's Felicity mad at?" Digg's voice called. Oliver wondered if someone had called a party at where his club had once been and forgotten to inform him.

"I thought Felicity didn't get mad?" Lyla sounded confused. Little Sara whined in her arms, and Oliver forgot about the party, because he hadn't seen his niece in a while.

"Oh, she gets plenty mad." Diggle reassured her. "The trick is getting her to that point. No one actually _wants _to, but Oliver's a master at it."

"So she's _not _mad at you, then?" Thea asked Roy.

"Wait, what did Roy do to get Felicity mad at him?" Laurel wondered.

"Didn't you just say that Felicity _didn't _get mad?"

"No! I said it was _hard_, but not impossible."

"Felicity was mad at Oliver." Roy stated firmly. "I'm sure of that. She's mad at him most of the time anyway."

"So she was mad at both you _and _Oliver?"

"I don't know! And anyway, Oliver's the one who hit me, not her."

"So they're _both_ mad at you?"

"It's a circus." Felicity murmured. "It's a godforsaken circus."

Oliver watched them in wonder. "I've created monsters."

Felicity made a funny face at Sara, who tried to grab at her glasses with sticky hands. Oliver jostled her a little and she giggled. "Well, the monsters created this tiny thing in turn, so it all worked out in the end." Felicity told him, placating.

Oliver gave her a minute to figure out she had no business trying to reassure him because she _was_, indeed, mad at him. She only needed ten seconds and Oliver needed to stop underestimating her. She hit his arm. "Hey! Holding a baby doesn't mean you're getting off!" She reddened. "The hook! Getting off the hook!"

"You're really going to have to start being careful with what you say in front of the baby, Felicity."

She bristled, and Oliver knew his doom was coming. "Oh, the Arrow is sending a _carefully_ worded press-release to the media in a couple of hours, alright."

Oliver only noticed they'd gained an audience when he let the silence fall after that ominous prevision and the circus didn't fill it.

He glared at each and every one of them and tried to forget that glaring was harder when there was a baby slobbering all over him. "Are you all done?"

Thea propped her elbows on a nearby table. "Disturbed, actually."

Roy shook his head, smirking. "The kids don't like it when mum and dad fight."

Thea snickered beside him, and Diggle played the uncle in the middle of it all and grimaced at the idea while Lyla raised her eyebrows. Laurel rubbed her forehead because it was apparently Oliver's fault that they had all chosen today as a great day to drop by the lair.

Obviously, Felicity was the one to find the last word. Oliver just wished it wasn't so incredibly inducing of imagination.

"Would you like it better if they made out instead?"

Diggle grimaced further and started to look for escape routes, Roy and Thea didn't look so much amused as vaguely disgusted, Lyla's eyebrows raised further and Laurel found something to choke on, which Oliver couldn't remotely care less about, because suddenly every usable bit of brain he had left was fairly busy.

"Seriously, it's like you can't control yourself." Roy complained.

"_You_ have five seconds to tell me where it is before I make good on my promise."

"What? Where _what_ is?"

"_Where_. _Is. It_?"

Oliver decided enough was enough, and tried to gather his thoughts enough that he could stick together an understandable sentence. "Felicity-"

"Shut up, Oliver, because I don't need you to use that _are-you-for-real _look on me to know that that was inappropriate-"

"It's in your hair."

That made her pause and turn to him.

"What?"

He stood up, balanced Sara on one arm only and reached for her hand. He saw her blink and grow pink for a couple of seconds before she realized he was leading her hand to her head. He mouth fell open and she pulled it out of her bun. "How did that even _get _there?!"

Thea rolled her eyes and dragged Roy to get changed, and Oliver kept half a glare on them in case they got the bright idea of changing within ten feet of each other even as he shrugged in Felicity's direction. "You'd know loads more about it than me."

"Didn't it occur to you I might have wanted to know where it was a _little _sooner? You know, since I've been _looking for it for over an hour now?!_"

"Yeah, absolutely. Except I noticed it when you were playing with Sara and it was literally staring me right in the face. And then you got talkative. I can never tell you anything properly when you get talkative."

"So… You're _not _mad at me anymore?" Roy questioned, without bothering to pull his shirt all the way down before reappearing. Thea snorted behind him, thankfully wearing her shirt properly.

"Shut up." Oliver groaned, and when Felicity said it right along with him, he tried not to remember just how inappropriate she could be.

"You know what, this seems to have been a serious case of bad- uh, timing." Diggle snatched Sara from Oliver's arms and backtracked with Lyla on his heels. "I'm sure Sara's exhausted, boy, listen to that wailing."

Sara happily waved her pudgy little hand at Felicity and kept perfectly calm because she was growing up in the middle of Team Arrow, and being pulled and pushed back and forth was already business as usual.

"Hey, hold on!" Laurel hurried to grab her jacket. "If you're going, that means I can go without being rude too."

"How's leaving rude?" Lyla asked.

"Quiet you, and keep walking."

Thea eyed the way Felicity carefully positioned the thing between screens, tablets, mouse and keypads. "Why do you even have that thing in here? Wouldn't it be- uh, _safer _at home, if you're so worried about it?"

"It goes where I go." Felicity said ominously. "Also, I've come to the not-so-recent conclusion that I spend most of my time here. My life is officially more about breaking the law than watching Doctor Who, so Hermione stays here, so that I can remember that no, I'm not a hardened criminal, I'm a veteran nerd."

"… It's a figurine, Felicity."

"It's an _expensive _figurine." She stressed. "And I do not live in a particularly peaceful neighborhood."

Roy waved that off. "Like we don't all have a rotating schedule watching your building every night."

"You _what_?!"

Thea shrugged, patting her shoulder. "Honestly, Felicity. You're the only non-trained member of this team. Plus, without you, there wouldn't even _be _a team in the first place. And then there's Oliver." That one was self-explanatory.

"That is the creepiest, sweetest thing you've ever said to me!"

Thea hugged her, cooing. "Aw, c'mon! I'm waiting for my brother to get his head out of his ass and make it official, but just because you're not a Queen and carrying a tinier Queen in your belly yet it doesn't mean you're not my sister already!"

Oliver figured he'd do damage control before it was too late. "Alright, out with you. Both of you. _Now_."

"_Oooh_, are you gonna fix that no-tiny-Queen situation now?"

"Go _away_, Thea. And don't take the bike!" Oliver barked to Roy's retreating back. He just sped up and was certainly going to pretend not to have heard him.

Oliver tried not to stare too directly into Felicity's eyes, though that had been pretty hard from the very first time he'd met her, let alone while she was wearing that stupid red dress with the hole in the front. Though it was easier while he was still focused on the fact that everyone else was _done_ expressing their views on his relationship with her.

It seemed to come a second where they mutually decided without deciding anything that it was time to start moving at once and in sync.

"I'm gonna go, uh, previous engagement."

"Right, yeah, it's getting late, I better go catch up on that Doctor Who."

When he realized she was headed toward the same exit (the _only _exit, and why had that occurred to him only now?), he unexpectedly remembered he should really go sharpen those arrows that future Roy needed to be afraid of when Oliver casually mentioned taking his sister on his bike.

She left ("My God, H., most awkward hour of my _life._ Which is my fault, obviously._"_ – she'd taken the figurine with her), he didn't sharpen a single arrow, and when he decided that ten minutes was long enough for the path to be clear, he turned all lights off and left. He figured the foundry was probably relieved that the inappropriate innuendoes and snide insinuations were over for the day.

(Or maybe that was him, except he didn't admit to being bothered by his sister, her boyfriend, or anyone else that might have caught on to the fact that he should really not be around Felicity if he didn't start sleeping with her on a regular basis soon.)

He stepped out of the club and Roy dropped down right next to him.

"Alright, alright, I surrender!" He choked, and only then did Oliver take his hand off his throat. (Course, he might have noticed it was Roy earlier, and he might have not been all that startled by his sudden appearance, and _technically _he could have let go of him sooner if he hadn't been trying to make a point, but the kid was still talking, wasn't he?)

Roy got up and the accusatory look in his eyes made Oliver roll his eyes and march forward. "You know, not funny. I didn't know you hold back when we spar."

"If I didn't hold back, you'd be dead."

"Not what I meant. You didn't hold back just now and I'm still breathing, aren't I? Not using killing blows is different from holding back."

"Where's Thea?"

"Home, probably. She took the bike."

"That's only slightly better than you taking her."

"Hey, I'm a careful driver!"

"You're as careful as she is, which is why I said _slightly_." He stopped abruptly when he realized Roy was _still _following him. "Did you want something?"

"Yeah. Thea told me I'd be sleeping on the couch if I didn't stay behind to tell you she's going to set up a blind date for Felicity if you don't ask her out by tomorrow."

"Fantastic. Two birds with one stone. You can tell her you delivered no such message because I will deny it, and I will actually pretend my sister isn't this meddlesome."

"That couch is very uncomfortable."

"Oh, trust me, I know. And did _you_ know that _everything _is uncomfortable if you take a beating? _Including _my sister's bed?"

"Look, I didn't want to be the messenger. She made me!"

"Why?"

"She said it was because she was tired of repeating it, but I think she's scared of you."

"No, it's definitely because she's tired of repeating it. She wasn't scared the last four hundred times she did it. And she also didn't make good on her threats, which didn't differ from the one she told you to deliver to me, so _good night, Roy_."

"Uh… Right."

Oliver stilled. There was something wrong with that particular tone.

"What?"

"What what?"

"Didn't we go over this? Beating, bed, uncomfortable?"

"Felicity's-been-going-on-a-few-dates-and-I-know-this-because-Thea-told-me-how-she-was-setting-them-up."

"_What?!_"

"Uh, Felicity's-been-"

"I _heard _you the first time."

"Right." He did a one-eighty and tried to hightail it out of there, but Oliver grabbed his hoodie. "It hasn't been going well!" He yelped. "That's all I know, I swear!"

"I'm not interrogating you, you idiot." Oliver shook him. "Now, why hasn't it been going well? You have five seconds to tell me before I decide that by kicking your ass, I'm really only protecting my sister's virtue."

"Yeah, that was stupid. Of course this isn't an interrogation. You're a lot less specific about your death threats in those."

"_Four… Three… Two…_"

"She rarely shows up! Stands the poor dudes up."

Oliver had a hard time calling anyone who got a date with Felicity _poor_, so he shook Roy a little more.

"Wait, _rarely_? When did she show up ever?"

"Man, you have _issues_. Just ask her out _yourself_, for Christ's sake."

"_When_?"

"_Yesterday! _Apparently the guy was called Oliver." He could hear the snide snickering in Roy's voice, so he forcefully reminded him he still had a hold of his jacket. "Ow!"

"But why?"

"Why what?" Roy grumbled, and Oliver let go of him, feeling only marginally calmer.

"Why does she never show up?"

Roy shrugged. "Because she's got the patience of a saint and so is still waiting for you to get your crap together?"

Oliver growled in warning. Roy changed tactics. "'Cause she's actually into girls?"

Oliver was clumsier than usual while pining Roy to the wall face-first again because, like it or not, the kid had put (pretty) pictures in his brain.

"_Ow! _Stop that!" Roy must have sensed his glare even if his back was turned, because he flinched. "Because she doesn't want to go out with anyone your sister approves of?"

Oliver pondered that. "Fair enough." He dropped him and Roy stumbled.

He was shoving his helmet down his head when Roy spoke again. "I'm guessing I'm cozying up to the couch tonight, then?"

Oliver snapped his visor down and let that be his answer.

"Honestly." Roy muttered as he watched him zoom away. "Way he acts, you'd think he isn't dying to do _exactly _as Thea says."


	4. Her Arrow

**A\N: This one's not quite as light, even though this story clearly says 'humor'… Oh well. Let's all just laugh at Oliver's inability to be slapped silly over his own stupidity, okay?**

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><p>Sometimes, the distractions Felicity brought with her weren't necessarily the good kind. (Oliver would never admit that aloud, though, because she might start thinking that for his and the team's own good, she ought to stop doing the sort of interesting things that admittedly might or might not distract him.)<p>

Granted, it happened rarely, but it tended to put him in a mood Dig liked to call 'jealous' (Oliver didn't think that made any sense at all, but Diggle was very persistent when he wanted to be) and Roy, who wasn't quite as bold about these things yet, liked to call 'UST'. Whatever that meant.

There was a pattern to those kind of distractions, too. They tended to happen when she wasn't even around, like when he got to the foundry, found her missing, recalled nothing about her telling him she wouldn't be there that night (which was something she'd actually started doing only after they'd spent an evening doing something that, for once, could not exactly be considered platonic, unless friends went on dates too), asked Dig about it, and got an answer as follows:

"She's in Central City."

Which was very simplistic (and complex and self-explanatory) and did, indeed, put him in one of the Diggle-baptized Moods.

He'd forgotten about Barry. Well, not exactly forgotten, because _cool_. He'd forgotten, however, that Felicity was his friend…

Yes, well, Oliver called Felicity a friend too, and that didn't particularly begin to cover it, did it?

Additionally, she seemed to _really _enjoy dancing with Barry. Not that he'd noticed that, or that she'd heavily favored those staring contests that she was supposed to have with Oliver only (Oliver as in _Oliver_, not Barry - _Oliver_), when the_ Streak_ had been in town (and not _yet_ the Streak, whereas Oliver had been an established vigilante by then, incidentally).

Who even got hit by a lightning bolt nowadays? Shipwrecking was a much more dignified way of creating a tragic hero. And for that matter, Barry had trouble with the whole 'tragic' part. He had a sad story, but he wasn't nearly broody enough. Did lightning strikes even _count_ as traumatic, life-changing catastrophes?

(Well, if they didn't, the super-speed probably did, but that was neither here nor there, no matter how incredibly awesome.)

But then Nyssa was in town, and somehow, someone (Oliver was willing to bet it was the same someone who'd said _'Hey, this spoiled brat over here is in serious need of a major life lesson. Oh, I know! Let's shipwreck him in the middle of the ocean and make his next five years a murder-how-to experience! Or do you think that's a little too over the top?'_) seemed to decide that obviously he was the right person to deal with it, just for skits and giggles, because the seventh anniversary of the date he'd lost everything about himself had _just _come and gone.

He only managed to get a minute alone with Felicity _after _Nyssa had sworn war and left.

Naturally, he was in the best of moods.

He broke his forth staff of the evening (he was getting really good at restraining himself) and that was when Felicity broke too. "Okay, we're gonna _talk_ about it now."

That was his cue. He automatically turned to his Arrow gear (the conditioning he'd made himself suffer through when the green dress had been around was paying off). "Talk about what?" He asked casually, hoping to get out of her sights quickly enough that she wouldn't have the time to actually answer the question.

Unfortunately, he wasn't Barry, and so speed was not his weakness, but it was certainly not his strength either. At least, not compared to the Streak. Then again, compared to Barry, speed was everyone's weakness.

"Oliver, you've always been short-sighted and really, _really _stubborn, but never particularly stupid."

Oliver grimaced. "I don't-"

"The last time I was in Central City, you- I mean, we- Well, you reacted a little more… Externally." She said, starting her line confidently and then faltering several times at once as she went on. Oliver could see where this was going. _Please, Lord, don't let her go there._ "And last time, we hadn't gone on any dates. _We_ – as in you and I, n-not that there's any particular _we _about it, at least not that kind of _we_, and I'll stop now."

She went there.

"Felicity," He said tersely. "you don't owe me anything, much less explanations."

"You're right, I don't." She agreed uneasily. "But- But I just- _Urgh_, I can't do this!" She slammed her hands on her desk. "I'm _not _going to beat around the bush. I want to clear the air, because I'm not going to feel guilty and you're not going to feel jealous, because you have no right. There. I said it. It's not like- Like we-" She faltered again and Oliver noted the use of the pesky '_we' _again.

"How about we just _don't _do this?"

"But I _want _to do this!" She exclaimed angrily, standing up. "Because I hate how things have become between you and me, and-" She swallowed drily. "I liked the way it was, before." She said in a soft tone. "I want us to go back to it, at least."

"I ruined that." Oliver grumbled.

"No." She said in a small voice. "You almost made it better. Then you bailed at the last minute."

"Felicity." He warned.

"Right. Not talking about it." She took a deep breath. "Is it still the same reason?"

"What?"

"Why you're upset. Is-"

He cut her off. "I'm not upset."

"Right." She said dubiously. "Whatever. Are you acting like this for the same reason you acted like you did the first time I visited Barry?" He didn't answer her. She seemed to think that was enough. "And last time, you said it was because… Me, being there, uh, 'made you realize how much you needed me here'."

She quoted him with the specific purpose of watching his reaction. Unfortunately for her, he seemed to have caught on to that, because he turned around the second she took a peek at him. Well, bully for him. That was a reaction in itself.

"Okay. Be like that." She said agreeably. "But, you know, Barry wouldn't just stay quiet. He's pretty chatty, like me. He'd answer."

Now, Felicity was in no way saying that Oliver instantly succumbed to the childish urge to be bigger and better and more talkative than the non-quiet Barry just because Felicity had compared them and Barry had come out on top. Maybe what she'd said was just that silly, and so Oliver couldn't keep his mouth shut about it.

The fact remained that he _did _turn, and he _did _roll his eyes, and he _did _answer her. But Felicity was certainly not about to jump to conclusions. "Good for Barry."

She beamed at him. "I can always count on your alpha male nature, if nothing else."

"Oh, God." He muttered.

"So, am I right? Is that the reason?"

_Was that the reason? _It was _always _the reason. _Always_. That was the whole problem in the first place. Oliver scowled. "Sure. Let's go with that." He sighed, giving up and sitting on his cot. There was no way he would be able to head out now.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked sharply.

"Nothing." He rubbed at his face. "It's just- I don't know." He shrugged hesitantly, because this was getting awfully close to be called _sharing_, and that was unacceptable. "I- We- The team, we're not- We wouldn't be able to- To function without you. I was just- worried, I suppose, that you might want to move to Central City… Be closer to Barry." He had to grit the words out, they were so sluggish to leave his mouth. "Of course, should you choose to, that's entirely for you to decide, and I wouldn't do a thing to keep you here-"

"Oliver." She cut him off in a strange voice, because this kind of interruptions was usually his trademark. She'd never heard anyone (other than her) ranting like that, and it was kind of fascinating. She supposed it was a direct result of all the time she spent with him. "You remember when you told me I was your 'girl'?" She asked unexpectedly, actually making the quotation marks in the air. "You know, when Sara-" Her voice faltered.

Oliver took over for both their sakes. "Uh- yes." He cleared his throat, suddenly wondering if this was actually being appreciated by his sake or not. "I didn't really think _you_ would remember it, though. You were…" He trailed off, unable to come up with the right word. Or at the very least, one that wouldn't offend her.

"Flying high as a kite?" She supplied helpfully. "Also, next time you try to make a literate person swallow 'aspirin', make sure you keep the bottle saying otherwise in big, bold letters away from her."

"I had nothing to do with that." Oliver protested. "It was all Dig."

"True." She acknowledged. "Then again, this conversation started with the words 'you', 'short-sighted', 'stubborn' and 'stupid', so it's never too much to cover all your bases."

"You get nicer every day."

"I _was_ tryingto say something nice, you know. You just interrupted." Oliver cocked his head, crossing his arms and making a 'carry on' gesture. "I didn't stay in Central City, you realize?" She cut him off before he had any sort of answer to be cut off over in the first place. "Of course you do, I'm right in front of you, and I _did _start this conversation by saying you're _not _stupid, so…"

"Felicity, have you ever noticed that you never get to your point any faster by indulging every stray thought that crosses your mind whenever you're speaking?"

Felicity scowled at him. "My _point_" She said forcibly. "is that- that I'm not moving anywhere. I-" She faltered. "I don't have feelings for Barry. Not- not _strong _feelings anyway." She hesitated. "I'm not the main character of some sort of flimsy romantic soap where I'm madly in love with more than one person. I- I only have enough feelings for- for one guy at a time."

Oliver stiffened and had to try really hard not to look in her general direction, because there were all these _things _that he didn't want her to read in his eyes.

There was a moment of silence, and then Felicity groaned. "It's always gonna be like this, isn't it? This is how my interactions with you are going to be for the rest of my days. Or yours, since apparently you're already foreseeing that to come about shortly." She grimaced. "I have the _worst _taste in men. My mother was right, and that's a scary thought."

Oliver pursed his lips. The sooner this conversation ended, the sooner they could go back to pretending to be perfectly platonic friends who happened to avoid close proximity or touching of any kind at all costs, because such things terrified them for one reason or the other.

"So, just so we're perfectly clear, it's fine to express possessive sentiments to one another, _but_ we're not allowed to discuss dates or _actual _feelings or upside-down love confessions? That's how it's gonna work from now on, right?" Felicity questioned, because she could not just_ let it go_.

"Right."

"Right." Felicity nodded. "More and more, I wonder why I decided it was a good idea to let a bleeding billionaire tell me what to do from the back of my car. Just about _everything _in that setting screams 'beginning of a tragic plot in a romantic novel'. Bad, _bad _decision-making, Felicity, you know that's a dangerous problem of yours." She muttered, and Oliver was pretty sure she was muttering to _herself_ too. It wasn't his fault that he felt he needed to try and overhear her.

He could feel that the conversation was over. Or as over as it could ever be, anyway, because, once again, they had managed to muddle their way through another heart-to-heart without settling anything at all. He checked his watch. "Dig should be here by now." was all he said.

Felicity picked up her phone. "He texted me." She said, surprised. Then again, Oliver was really the only one who could properly take her attention completely off her phone. "He's not coming today. Sara's sick." She said, frowning.

Oliver searched for his own phone and found he had two identical messages with the same content Felicity had just relayed to him, and several missed calls. He sighed. "Head home too, Felicity. Roy's got this thing with Thea at the club too. I don't think I'm going out tonight."

Felicity seemed to think about protesting, but only ended up taking a few long seconds to nod. "Alright." She gathered her things but lingered, her hand on the doorknob and her eyes somewhere other than him. "And, Oliver…" He met her wide-eyed expression. "If I'm your girl, then… Then _you're _my hero – _my _vigilante. I only have _one _of those too."

She hurried to leave then, all reddened cheeks and her phone clutched in her hand as though it was a lifeline, and Oliver stared avidly after her even if he did not move, because she was so bright and beautiful and sometimes he had to forcibly spell it out for himself, with great care, why it was, exactly, that he was pushing her away.

At least he was clearly still plenty close. Close enough to not be replaced. Not yet, anyway.

He wondered how long they could keep themselves properly balanced on the knife's edge.


End file.
